CQOD: 09/30/06 -- Studdert Kennedy: is this us?

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 30, 2006Meditation:
    And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."
    -- Mark 12:42-44 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    We have been so desperately anxious to secure a moral gymnasium in which the righteous rich could exercise their souls—not by selling all and giving to the poor, but by giving away what they do not really want—that we have failed to remember the effect of their patronage upon the poor. The strong have reserved to themselves the blessing of giving without receiving. The amount that is given away in charity in a single year in this country [U.K.], or in direct relief—which is the name by which we hide our shame of charity—is positively staggering. And yet people are not fed, and by that means never will be. By Charity alone can the world be saved, but this is not charity. It tends to obscure rather than to realise the Brotherhood of Man, it is—and thank God we increasingly feel it to be—a put-off, a refusal of the way of the Cross. It is not Christianity; it is an excuse for not being Christian. More and more the quality of our modern mercy becomes exceedingly strained. It does not drop as the gentle dew from heaven, but is screwed from the pockets of shamefaced people, uncomfortably conscious of the poverty-stricken places beneath. It is twice cursed: it curseth him that gives and him that takes, and is meanest in the mightiest, because they feel it least.
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Wicket Gate [1923]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I confess hardness of heart to those in need.

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CQOD: 09/29/06 -- Bonhoeffer: becoming a Christian

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 29, 2006

Feast of Michael & All Angels

Meditation:
    [Jesus said,] Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.
    -- Matthew 26:46 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself—a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman, a righteous or unrighteous man, ... when in the fullness of tasks, questions, success or ill-hap, experiences and perplexities, a man throws himself into the arms of God... then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am merely walking and breathing dust. Make of me what You intend, not what I wish.

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CQOD: 09/28/06 -- Percy: They cast their nets in Galilee

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 28, 2006Meditation:
    Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
    -- Matthew 10:39 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    They cast their nets in Galilee, just off the hills of brown;
    Such happy, simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came down.
    Contented, peaceful fishermen, before they ever knew
    The peace of God that filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too.

    Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless in Patmos died.
    Peter, who hauled the teeming net, head-down was crucified.
    The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod;
    Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing—the marvelous peace of God.
        ... William Alexander Percy (1885-1943)

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Quiet time reflection:
    I thank You and praise You for Your victory in the church.

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CQOD: 09/27/06 -- MacDonald: the only fear

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 27, 2006

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660

Meditation:
    Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."
    -- John 18:37 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    If I mistake, He will forgive me. I do not fear Him: I only fear lest, able to see and write these things, I should fail of witnessing and myself be, after all, a castaway—no king but a talker: no disciple of Jesus, ready to go with Him to the death, but an arguer about the truth.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “Kingship,” Unspoken Sermons, Third Series [1889]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me true discipleship.

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CQOD: 09/26/06 -- Berdyaev: reality or appearance?

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 26, 2006

Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942

Meditation:
    And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."
    -- Matthew 9:10-13 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    There is no longer any room in the world for a merely external form of Christianity, based upon custom. The world is entering upon a period of catastrophe and crisis when we are being forced to take sides, and in which a higher and more intense spiritual life will be demanded of Christians.
    ... Nikolai A. Berdyaev (1874-1948)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me choose only that which is authentically Yours and leave customs and forms behind.

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CQOD: 09/25/06 -- Brooks: loyalty to a Person

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 25, 2006

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392

Meditation:
    And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, "'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed'--for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
    -- Acts 4:24-28 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    The characteristic of our modern Christianity, which correlates it with all apostolic times, is the substitution of loyalty to a person in place of belief in doctrines, as the essence and test of Christian life. This is the simplicity and unity by which the Gospel can become effective.
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the Anointed One, and my loyalty is to You.

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CQOD: 09/24/06 -- Tournier: personal language

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 24, 2006Meditation:
    Then the disciples came and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" And he answered them, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."
    -- Matthew 13:10-13 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Those old Greek gods are not just poetry and legend. In them the Ancients personified living realities—intelligence, beauty, love, or lust, which are still at work in our hearts, and which fashion our persons. The language they speak is that of image and myth, which touches the person much more directly than the explicit language of science and the intellectual dialectic of the modern world. It is also the language of the Bible, of the parables of Christ, which the rationalist of today finds it so difficult to understand, of the Word of God which demands of us not a discussion but a personal decision.
    ... Paul Tournier (1898-1986), The Meaning of Persons [1957]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I not shrink from the demands of Your parables.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD: 09/23/06 -- Chesterton: inner vs. outer light

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 23, 2006Meditation:
    But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.


    -- Isaiah 64:6 (KJV)

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Quotation:
    That Jones shall worship the “god within him” turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon—anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.
    ... G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Orthodoxy [1909]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my inner light is all darkness. I thank you and praise You for bringing light to me.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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